The Mamur is a government official whom the narrator encounters one day on a train ride in Sudan. The Mamur had been in the same class as Mustafa Sa’eed in school, during the period of British colonialism. On the train ride, he recalls Sa’eed’s genius and precocity to the narrator. The Mamur’s unsolicited memories of Sa’eed represent one of several instances in the novel when Sa’eed, through the memories of others, suddenly appears to haunt the narrator.